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Texas executes mentally impaired inmate with animal drugs

Yokamon Hearn executed in Texas‎

A 33-year-old man with alleged mental impairments was executed by the state of Texas on Wednesday after being administered a single narcotic by lethal injection — the same drug commonly used by veterinarians to kill dogs and cats.

Despite requests for authorities to reconsider the mental functions of Yokamon Hearn, the convicted car jacker and murderer became the sixth death row inmate executed in only seven months by the state. And although the execution occurred in a state unarguably infamous for its routine capital punishment procedures, the case is continuing to raise questions about why and how Hearn was put to death.

Not only had attorneys argued that Hearn suffered severe mental impairments brought on by his mother’s incessant prenatal drinking, but a long history of neglect and abuse from his parents painted a picture of a defendant mentally scared and unfit for execution. What raises additional scrutiny, however, is how the state went about the killing. For the first time in history of Texas, authorities induced death by injecting the inmate with a single drug — pentobarbital — instead of the standard cocktail of narcotics regularly used in the past. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice confirmed one week earlier that their supply of one of the drugs previously used in executions — the muscle relaxant pancuronium bromide — had expired and that they’d be forced to find another way to carry out the execution.

After the European Union banned the export last year of the barbituric acids regularly used in a three-drug cocktail favored by American prisons, officials in the States were forced to find alternative means of executing their inmates. In September, authorities in Florida used pentobarbital to kill a death row inmate, despite pleas from the drug’s manufacturer that demanded otherwise. Because of banns the drug is no longer exported to the US, but a surplus of supplies in some states is forcing authorities to use the narcotic to kill inmates, especially in instances where the components of the three-drug cocktail are unavailable.

By switching to a single dose of Nembutal — the product name of pentobarbital — Mr. Hearn’s execution cost the state $1,286.86 instead of the normal $84.55 for a three-drug cocktail. Before a string of recent executions across America, pentobarbital was used primarily in lethal injections administered to pets that were put to sleep by veterinarians.

Before being administered the narcotic on Wednesday evening, Hearns offered a final statement to his loved ones.

“I’d like to tell my family that I love y’all and I wish y’all well. I’m ready,” the inmate said. He was pronounced dead a full 25 minutes later.